


Nothing to Fear

by Gay_and_Afraid



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, Homophobia, Minor Violence, Multi, polygems - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 18:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20661491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gay_and_Afraid/pseuds/Gay_and_Afraid
Summary: Human AU where instead of fighting a space empire, they took down homophobes.Established polygems, but can be read as platonic. (Tbh, all of my content is gay whether I want it to be or not. it's subconscious lol)Pearl- centric.Steven is closer to his season 5 age than his movie age.Ice skating is Pearl's escape, until she falls flat on her back and starts thinking.





	Nothing to Fear

No past. No future. Just the present. 

Pearl could recall dozens of memories in an instant. All it took was a quick glance at a specific shade of pink. It took one longing stare at the portrait hanging on the wall of their little beach house in Delmarva. It took one all too familiar look in Steven's eyes and she spiraled. 

But that didn't matter. Not now, at least. Not while she was out here on the ice. 

Pearl took a shaky breath as she pulled the laces of the ice skates tight to her feet. Try as she might, the memories flashed through her mind. 

~~~  
“Pearl! Amethyst! Garnet!” The three women turned to the little boy as he ran into the house. “Look! Me and Connie were on the beach and we found this super cool rock!” Steven threw the rock down. The trio looked to the rock on the table and Garnet gave a thumbs up.  
“Woah Ste-man, that's pretty cool. I know some places you and Connie could find some even cooler rocks if you wanna- uh. Pearl? You okay?” Amethyst turned everyone's attention to Pearl, whose hands were held over her mouth. She was shaking as she pried her hands from her face.  
“I-uh.” Eyes stared. Eyes judged. Pearl panicked. Pearl ran.  
~~~

She laughed to herself, imagining how ridiculous she must have looked. What would they say when she returned home? But it wasn't ridiculous, and she knew that. She knew very well that it made sense, but thoughts like these tended to lead to reliving those terrible memories. She chose to feel ridiculous when she could because feeling embarrassed was easier to deal with than deep, deep regret and guilt. She shook her head, attempting to keep the memory from flooding her conscious again. 

Just, the present. 

Pearl sighed as she stood and stepped into the empty ice rink. She made her way across the ice, graceful as ever. After years and years of training and practice, she thought she'd be able to do a Lutz jump with little to no problem, but the second the toe pick touched the ice, she froze, and she fell. Her back slammed against the ice, but that hardly mattered. As far as she was concerned, she was far away from that ice rink. 

~~~  
They threw her to the ground. Pearl scrambled to her feet to run, but was met with a rock hitting the back of her head, and falling to the ground beside her. She had no time to recover before a kick to the chest pushed her back onto the ground. She rolled onto her side and curled up into a ball, hope of escape wearing thin.  
“Pearl!” A voice cried. Familiar. “Pearl!” She called once again, closer. They ran away on sight. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't speak. She coughed up blood onto the cold, hard pavement.  
~~~

“Pearl!”  
She shot up from her position on the ice and looked to the entrance. Garnet was stood there, concerned, in front of Amethyst and Steven who were equally worried. He made a step to run over to Pearl, but Garnet put a hand out to stop him. Amethyst, instead, made the run across the ice to stand at Pearl's side. She sat up, hugging her knees. While it was a move for comfort rather than warmth, it seemed that she was shivering from laying on the ice for that prolonged period of time. How long had she been laying there?  
“You hurt?” Pearl shook her head no. “Need a hand?” Amethyst said, reaching out to her. Pearl hesitantly took it and stood to her feet. They made their way off the ice and Pearl was pulled onto the nearest bench. Amethyst kneeled to unlace and take off the skates as Steven wrapped Pearl in a jacket with a hug. Garnet sat beside her, hand open and inviting. She took it in a heartbeat. Steven spoke up,  
“I'm sorry if you don't like rocks! I didn't mean to upset you and I-”  
“It's okay, Steven, really. It's not… rocks necessarily, but…” She trailed off.  
“The sound, right?” Garnet spoke. Pearl turned, shooting her a questioning look. Amethyst elaborated from the floor in front of her.  
“The rock hit the table, and it spooked ya?”  
“Uh, if you put it simply, I suppose so.”  
“Well then, I'll be more careful next time I find I cool rock.” Steven promised. Pearl smiled.  
“Let's get you back home and warmed up. We can talk, if you'd like. If not, we can just be quiet company.” Garnet stood, pressing a kiss to her hand. 

The four arrived at home after a short and comfortably silent drive. Steven got ready for bed, and said goodnight, adding another apology. Pearl sat on the couch, blanket draped over her. She didn't want to be alone. Garnet and Amethyst sat on either side of her and held her close. She didn't have to be alone. The sound of muffled sobs interrupted Pearl's thoughts. Steven.  
She stood without hesitation and quickly made her way to his room, the other two staying behind.  
“Steven?” She asked, approaching his bed.  
“P-pearl! I- I'm-” She sat down next to him, wrapping arms around the boy to calm him down, “I'm sorry.”  
Pearl sighed, “Steven, it isn't your fault. It's okay.”  
“But-”  
“Don't argue. If you want someone to blame, you'd have to blame me. It was my reaction. I didn't have to freak out over something as dumb as a rock being dropped.”  
He caught his breath, and sniffled, “Did it have something to do with….” Steven stopped his questioning.  
“Do you want me to tell you a story?”  
“Only if you want to. I don't want to upset you again.”  
“It's alright, Steven. I want to.” She took a deep breath and began. “We were outside Ruby and Sapphire's bar- me and your mother, I mean- around, God it must've been 20 years ago. I was young. We were meeting up with Garnet. Her moms decided they wanted to put a pride flag up on the window and let people know it was a safe space and although none of us wanted to admit it, we were scared that people would react… less than kindly.”  
“I'm glad that we can have pride stuff around town now and not have anyone be mean about it.” Steven interrupted, optimistically.  
She smiled, “Me too. But of course, this stuff was a lot more controversial back then. Me and Rose decided to stick around incase any problems arose, and the first few days were okay. Besides the occasional argument, they didn't have any issues. Then, word spread. It was one night where the bar was fairly crowded. I wanted to make sure a woman outside was okay. She was just out front to smoke, but she was young. She reminded me of myself when I was her age, sneaking out and rebelling in spite of her parents. Good thing I stepped out, too, because a group of men walked by and took interest in that defenseless young girl.”  
“Yuck. What did they do?”  
“Well, nothing much… to her. The moment one of them opened their mouth, I saw her panic. So I took her hand and told her we were heading inside, so that she knew she wasn't alone, and that she had a way out if she needed one. She nodded in acknowledgement of what I was doing, and she stepped inside. But I was just at the door when one of them stopped me. Guess we were lucky up until then, to not have any violent run-ins with people, cause the second they saw the flag, they spewed as many slurs as they could at me.”  
Steven frowned, but didn't interrupt, “I tried to keep my temper, but one off handed comment about… Rose and I threw a punch. It took the entire group a moment to register that the lesbian they were harassing just knocked one of them onto the ground with one hit, but I couldn't walk back inside quick enough. They threw anything they could at me, but it took one rock to the back of my head to throw off my balance. I couldn't fight back alone, so I just hoped I could tolerate the pain and they'd leave soon enough. It took a minute or two for Garnet to run outside, yell for me, and chase all of them off, but… I was a wreck. She pulled me inside, helped bandage me up, and bought me a drink. Your mother was furious. Garnet, too, mostly because they weren't there to stop the conflict from escalating so much. But I was alright, and there were so many fights that broke out because of that bar that I'm surprised this one stuck with me so much. In fact, we met Amethyst when she did something similar for a different woman a bit later. Of course, she definitely won that fight, but that's a story for another time.”  
“Well, it was one of the first fights. You probably hoped it wouldn't be like that.”  
“I suppose you're right. Some of this is… really scarring. It's hard to walk away from some of the worst things humanity has to offer and not be disturbed.”  
“I can see that. But… I can also see that you're here with me. And as long as you're here, no one is going to hurt you for being who you are. I'll always admire you and Garnet and Amethyst for being so brave even when everything told you not to be.” Steven lurched forward to give Pearl a hug. “If you ever wanna talk about some more stories, I'm here. I wanna help, but it's also super cool to tell people stories of you guys fighting against mean people.” Pearl smiled and returned the hug. “You guys are really cool. You're like, super heros. But real! So just heros, but I guess you're pretty super, too.”  
“Mind if we join you?” Garnet asked as the two broke from their hug, Amethyst beside her.  
“Of course you can.” Steven said instantly. Amethyst chuckled and rustled his hair before sitting next to him. “Pearl was just telling me about how you all fought bad guys to protect people!”  
Garnet smiled, “Did she tell you the time she kissed me just to spite a group of protestors?”  
“Garnet!” Pearl interrupted, a bit embarrassed.  
“No, hold on. I think I'll want to hear this one.” Amethyst teased as she leaned her head on Pearl's shoulder. 

The past would not haunt her then. The future would not worry her for now. She was okay. 

No past. No future. Just the present. 

And what a moment this was.

**Author's Note:**

> Could you tell I didn't know Anything about ice skating? Lol. Thanks for reading!!! 
> 
> This is the first fic I've uploaded here cause everything I write, I convince myself it's garbage. But I decided to impulsively post this cause I'm low-key proud of it so here it is! 
> 
> I might make a longer fic in this world, but I wanna see how y'all like the concept. So comment and let me know if you wanna see more :)


End file.
